The Rise of Security Cameras in New York City

Like many cities, New York has a number of cameras in operation all over town. Some people have hardly noticed them in the past, but now they're an increasingly noticeable -- and some say imporotant -- part of the urban realm.

"In Times Square, perhaps more than any other place in the city, our movements are being recorded a hundred different ways: from a few stories up the side of the Bertelsmann building, from inside the plate glass of the Bank of America branch, as we pass through the turnstiles of a subway station, at the point of purchase in seemingly every store. While the search was still on for the driver of that smoking Nissan Pathfinder, one of the Police Department's first moves was to review footage from cameras between 51st and 34th Streets - all 82 of them. And those are just the cameras the city owns."